There is a short film making the blogosphere (and Twittersphere) rounds today called Pixels. It was made by Patrick Jean, and I have to say that in terms of appropriating commercial iconography for an animated work, this kicks the shit out of the Oscar-winning Logorama, which I found to be clever for about a minute before it got really corny. Of course, some people will call this corny, too. But some people are wrong. This is extremely clever. This is downright amazingeniuspectacularadical. If you don't believe me, read the testimonies of the bloggers down below.

Memo to Hollywood: there is no longer any need for Independence Day sequels or any other NYC invasion/disaster movie. There is also no longer any need for movies based on the 8-bit video game classics featured in Jean's film. In fact, I'm going to a little further. And maybe this is just because I'm an enthusiast and scholar of New York cinema and because of my excitement with actually being able to appreciate all the video game references (this is a rare treat for someone who hasn't really played video games in decades). But there is no longer any need for any more movies, short or feature-length, ever again. This is it. Game over.

I hesitate to introduce a video with the vague declaration "This is amazing," cause it doesn't really grab your attention and force you to watch it, but in the case of this video, "Pixels", I am forcing you to watch it, and I am going to just say "This is amazing," because it's amazing

Sometimes a video needs no preamble. All you need to know about Patrick Jean's short film Pixels is that it's about a bunch of 2D video game icons who enter our world and begin attacking New York City. I think anyone of a certain age is instantly sold on that premise alone. And, well, there really isn't a whole lot of information available beyond that, anyway. [...] So please, do check out Pixels below. I guarantee you will not be disappointed

Imagine NYC getting destroyed by 8-bit evil forces from 70s and 80s games, including Space Invaders, Pacman and Donkey Kong. Actually, you don't have to imagine it. Just watch this amazing video. It's so cool that it makes me giddy.

Remember when a cloud of pixels blew through the New York City sky, unleashing a storm of evil video game characters that wreaked havoc on the skyline and destroyed the planet? No? That's because we're now all slaves in a Matrix-like pseudo-reality. Relive history through the coolest video ever.

Want to see your favorite 8-bit video games come to life in NYC? That's pretty much what's going on in this 2-minutes of old school awesomeness below. Too bad almost all of these characters are out to destroy us--it's like pixelgeddon!

If there's something truly wonderful about the dawn of the internet, it's the sharing of unique experiences that would otherwise be lost in a sea of nothingness. This becomes most apparent when someone extremely creative makes a wonderful short and distributes it online. Such is the case with Pixels, a vibrant and fun little short from a French group called One More Production.

Mark my words: the best video game movie is going to be one that comes from a retro property. Trying to make movies out of games that are trying to be movies will most likely never work because all you're doing is taking the interactivity out of a video game. But because 8-bit video games are silly and didn't really try to tell a story, there's so much room for imagination.

You can see that imagination on display with a short film by Patrick Jean called Pixels.

This brilliant, fun music video from France does several difficult things at the same time:
1) it perfectly captures my nostalgia for old video games
2) it makes you feel sorry for obsolete technology, and
3) it posits an end-of-world scenario few of us have ever considered: what would happen if the big, blocky pixels of the past came back and took their revenge?

There are so many tasty touches here. The behavior and movement of objects as they shatter into pixels. The way the game characters have been incorporated into the invasion -- Tetris blocks fitting into buildings and Pac Man eating through the subway? Hardly genius, but certainly perceptive and fun.